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You
Can Import Goods From Overseas For Pennies On the Dollar!
It
may have been hard in the past for small entrepreneurs
to import cheap products from countries like China, but
things have drastically changed.
For
example, In 1986, total trade between the United States
and China was $7.9 billion. By 2005, this total has reached
over $170 billion, making China the United States' third
largest trading partner.
You
can't believe how easy this is. With the right information,
you just find products that cost a couple of dollars
each and sell them for 1000%+ mark-ups by the thousands
with your own Internet sites.
Please
click here to read this urgent report.
"Number" Q&A
Last
week, in Message
#1789 and Message
#1793, Michael Masterson helped you come up with your "number" -
the amount of money you need in order to retire and enjoy
the lifestyle you're hoping for.
He
covered a lot of ground in those two articles - but, even
so, some of our readers had questions. So let's answer the
four main ones now ...
Question
1: What about the effects of inflation on my retirement
income?
Answer: When you're retired, inflation can certainly
have a negative effect on your wealth. We asked financial planner
Howard Phillips what he thinks about inflation, and here's
what he said: "The inflation question is a very good one,
because there are certain lifestyle costs that will be more
burdensome to retirees in the future. One of the obvious ones
is medical costs. The last 30 years of our lives are when we
normally will incur more expenses for treatment of disease
than the previous 50. High-tech 'cures' will become more and
more expensive, and Medicare will not come close to paying
for it. Energy prices will continue to be high for many years
to come. Many of my retired clients are being bit by growing
property taxes."
Sounds like bad news. But Howard suggests that one of the best
ways to "beat" inflation is to diversify your investments.
Some investment alternatives which may not feel the pinch of
inflation - or could even grow in value because of inflation
- include:
- Inflation-protected
Treasury bonds
- Foreign
bonds (which benefit from a declining dollar)
- Real
estate and commercial real estate funds (REITs)
- Floating-rate
bond funds
- Utilities
(Electric companies in regulated markets are guaranteed
a profit, so they can raise prices when costs increase.)
- Global
large-cap companies that pay higher-than-average dividends
- Food-related
stocks, both retail and at the commodity level
- Gold
Question
2: Gary North says one way to cut down your number is to
move to someplace cheap. Is it worth it to consider moving
to a cheap, nice place where you plan to retire?
Answer: The
point is, you want to establish the lowest number that will
make you happy. And if you can be happy in a less-expensive
place, that's a very good thing, because everything will
be cheaper ... not just the house, but utilities, food, and
clothing.
Question
3: What happens if you under-estimate? In other words,
how do you make sure your number is high enough?
Answer: If you calculate your number as Michael recommends
in his "quick-and-dirty" formula - it should be
plenty high. But if it isn't, you'll know years in advance.
And if that's the case, the best solution would be to identify
a hobby that you can turn into a money-making business. (Make
sure you consider your age when you choose this hobby. If you
love to ski and think you may be able to make extra money as
a ski instructor, remember that you might not be as physically
fit in the years to come as you are now.)
Question
4: If I have 5 - or even 20 - years left until retirement,
how I am I possibly going to increase my savings to $3
million to $20 million? Is this a realistic goal?
Answer: Yes,
it's definitely realistic. Easy, in fact...But you have to
dramatically increase your income ... and you have to get
a good return on your investments (ROI). Michael has gone
over this in detail in Automatic
Wealth and Automatic
Wealth for Grads…and Anyone Else Just Starting Out -
but here's what it boils down to: You get your income up
by becoming invaluable within a corporate structure - so
invaluable that your employer gladly pays you $200,000+ a
year.
You
could also increase
your income by starting a side business. And be sure
to invest in real
estate. If you check out Michael's next book, Seven
Years to Seven Figures, and follow the book's income-accelerating
program, you'll get richer that much faster.
"The
purpose of business is to create and keep a customer."
Giving
Legs to Online Marketing
By
David Cross
Our
family now has 1,182 legs. That would mean a lot of shoes
... but for the fact that few of those legs belong to people.
I
married a veterinarian. And I smile when I remember that
only after we married did my mother-in-law recount
the tales of my wife's childhood menagerie. Any stray animal
looking for a home need meow and meander no further, for
here was a modern day St. Francis.
Today,
we are two adults, three children, one baby due in September,
two 175-pound English mastiffs, four cats (rescued strays),
five chickens, four sheep, two pigs, one turtle ... and 277
zebras.
Yes,
I did say zebras. We've got striped critters everywhere I
look, but mainly on the walls of the downstairs bathroom,
where a herd of singing, dancing zebras live. Moving through
that room too quickly could generate a dangerous strobe effect.
All
those zebras remind me of a key to online marketing success.
As the old adage says, "Birds (and zebras) of a feather
flock together." In other words, though there may be
over one billion people on the Internet (according to Computer
Industry Almanac), you can't aim your marketing efforts
at all of them. You've got to target small (or "niche")
groups of people with a product or service that is highly
focused on their wants, needs, or desires.
You'll
have the makings of a nice little business if you can find
just 1,000 people who are as nuts about collecting zebras
as my wife, or 1,000 people who have a passion for 1950s
baseball cards, sand from the world's best surfing beaches,
antique fishing reels, old valve radios, or World War II
shrapnel.
Niche
marketing is not a new concept. Most businesses know they
must target their advertising to a specific group of people.
However, the concept applies not just to finding customers,
but also to every aspect of your ongoing relationship with
them.
And
this is where many online businesses fall flat.
In Message
#1776, I talked about how many businesses still practice
what I refer to as "spaghetti marketing" - throwing
the same e-mail or Web marketing message at large groups
of potential customers and hoping some will stick. The
few who are interested in what they are offering, buy -
but for the majority, their message is at best irrelevant
... and maybe even irritating.
Other
businesses spend a lot of time and money driving qualified
traffic to their websites, shopping carts, e-mail signup
points, and "landing pages." But they put almost
no thought into figuring out how to communicate with those
people once they become prospects or customers. Most end
up in a generic pool, where everyone receives the same follow-up
messages and treatment.
But
how does your individual customer or prospect feel about
that? She used Google and typed-in her own search term. She
selected your website from the thousands available. She signed
up for your free e-mail newsletter for reasons that interested
her, and she believes - rightly, as far as she is concerned
- that your communication with her will be part of this increasingly
relevant dialog.
So
why aren't you doing it that way?
You
don't have one customer database of 100,000 people. You have
100,000 one-person lists. And you need to communicate with
each of those individuals as personally as you can.
Beginning
with the idea that she found you because she is interested
in your business makes good sense. And you have access to
plenty of data that will tell you not only why she is interested
in your business, but also which search term or ad brought
her to your website. That makes it easy to customize your
first communications with her.
A
good way to do that is to implement an introductory series
of e-mail messages. This is especially effective if the customer
has signed up for your online newsletter. You send out five
or so evergreen issues of your publication during the first
7 to 10 days of her subscription. By "evergreen," I
mean that these issues will be made up of content that is
not time-sensitive.
This
gives your new reader a good introduction to your subject
matter, writers, and "cast of characters." At the
same time, you could include recommendations for complementary
products or subscriptions that may be of interest to her.
From
one introductory e-mail series, you could move to a few more,
each one focused on a different product or service offered
by your business that fits with your new subscriber's interests.
Done correctly, this process will help cement your customers'
initial relationships with you while converting their interests
into relevant sales.
I
know of some online newsletter publishers who are using this
introductory e-mail series technique to convert something
like 10 percent of their new readers into paying customers
for additional products.
Today's
Action Plan: Realize that all of your customers are
unique and that your success lies in serving their individual
needs. And there are many opportunities online - in e-mail
and on the Web - to learn what makes your customers tick.
So spend some time today brainstorming ideas about how
you can learn more about your customers and how you will
address their needs in your communications with them. Above
all, find out how you can use that knowledge to better
serve them.
[Ed.
Note: David Cross is Senior Internet Consultant to Agora
Publishing in Baltimore. Meet him in person at ETR's Information
Marketing Bootcamp in November. He and other Internet
marketing experts will show you how to build and/or dramatically
grow your business. Sign
up now to reserve your spot.]
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An Investment In Yourself...
Today,
I'd like to tell you about the easiest
way to immediately advance your career--no
matter what field you work in.
In
fact, you could add anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 to
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Sound
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-
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Notes
From Paris: When a Man's Castle Is His Home
By
Michael Masterson
At
lunch today in a small restaurant across the rue from
our office in Paris, BB and I were talking about chateaux (the
French word for castles). He has bought two of them. One,
a mere 12-bedroom abode that he refuses to call a chateau,
has been converted to a weekend home for his family. The
other, with more than two dozen bedrooms and a ballroom,
cannot be described in any other way.
Both
were bought cheaply - or so he thought when he purchased
them. But the costs of fixing them up (a roof here, new plumbing
there) have added up over the years. When BB tallied up the
add-ons and extras over the years, the original price for
these once-dilapidated structures was only about 30 percent
of the total.
"But
I had so much fun fixing up my ruins," he said.
I
knew what he meant. I'd done the same thing with three vintage
cars: a 1955 Thunderbird, a 1962 Corvette, and a 1966 Jaguar
sedan.
Preserving
the past, we agreed, is a very expensive hobby. This is a
good thing to keep in mind next time you have the "opportunity" to
buy something old (and cheap) and restore it. Much of the
time, it doesn't pay.
If
you are young or inexperienced and don't already know this
to be true, pay attention. Here is the skinny on making money
with fixer-uppers:
1.
You will always spend more on the restoration than you
think. Depending on your experience, you will end up spending
between 20 and 200 percent of what you planned to spend.
2.
In a flat or falling market, you can get killed with fixer-uppers,
because most people prefer new to restored.
3.
In a rising market, be leery of overspending for a clunker.
4.
Time is your enemy. The longer the restoration takes, the
more expensive it will be.
5.
Be aware of inflation in the cost of labor and materials.
6.
Ask yourself: "How much do I love the idea of doing
this restoration?" The greater your love, the greater
your loss will likely be.
These
rules apply to just about everything of value that you can
think of: vintage cars, watches, cameras, furniture, appliances, chateaux,
and regular houses, as well. (As a general rule, the more
parts, the greater the risk.)
So
if you are tempted to buy cheap and restore, first find out
how expensive it would be to buy a similar but recently restored
item. It will certainly be more expensive, but it might be
much less expensive than doing it yourself. And you'll be
able to enjoy it right away.
Where
Does Your Tuna Come From?
By
Jon Herring
You
probably already know that traces of mercury can be found
in seafood. But this toxin may be more common than you think.
In
a new study by Landmark Laboratories, 164 cans of tuna from
around the world were tested. The tuna from Latin America
- especially Mexico and Ecuador - had the highest levels
of mercury, sometimes 50 percent higher than what the U.S.
government allows. Why so high? Because commercial fishermen
in those countries target the largest and oldest tuna, which
have been exposed to mercury longer.
Tuna
is an excellent source of protein and healthy omega-3 fatty
acids. And if you enjoy it, fear of mercury shouldn't stop
you from eating it. Oregon's Choice and Vital
Choice are two companies that specialize in small, line-caught,
sashimi-grade albacore that is naturally low in mercury.
Plus, the tuna is cooked in the can to preserve the omega-3s.
(Reference:
Associated Press)
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Word
to the Wise: Contumely
"Contumely" (kon-TYOO-muh-lee)
is scornful insolence. The word is derived from the Latin
for outrage or insult.
Example
(as used by Edmund Burke, the 18th century British statesman
and philosopher): "Nothing aggravates tyranny as much
as contumely."
